ADRIAN VASILESCU: "The new generation carries over the populist speech against banks"

When speaking about financial education, we are speaking about the bankers' financial education, of the customer service officers in banks, who don't always know how to talk to people, explains Adrian Vasilescu, strategy consultant in the NBR.

On Friday, he told us that according to some specialized polls conducted by the European institutions, Romania ranks last in Europe when it comes to financial education, with 22 percentage points, and Bulgaria holds the next to last position in that chart, with 32 percentage points. A global analysis shows that we are ranked 144 out of 147 countries, in that regard, says Mr. Vasilescu.

He said: "Whenever financial education is brought up in the public debates and the country's position which doesn't honor us is mentioned, people say that they feel offended. I say that they shouldn't. When speaking about financial education, we are talking about the bankers' financial education, of the customer service representatives in banks, who don't always know how to talk to people. Banks work with technicians.

They are not specialists in PR. The banks' mistake is that they do not hire psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, to think up the social, human responses, between the bank and their customers. The civil society doesn't have this concern, and people are not specialized. They should reach a level of financial education so they can understand «how to read the time» on the clock, so to speak. They are not required to know how the device works, but they need to know «how to read the time»".

Adrian Vasilescu's explanations come as a reaction to the questions addressed on Thursday, by some of the 11th grade pupils to bankers who attended meeting on financial education.

The teens were curious to know what the banks do with the money they earn from fees and why they are also charged on ATM operations. They have also asked what effects the Law of giving in payment and why people who are unable to meet their loan payments are getting evicted.

One of the resounding questions was why citizens aren't allowed to do loan sharking, "while banks practice legal loan sharking?". Another question addressed to bankers was: "Why should we trust banks, when many people lost their homes because of you?"

Adrian Vasilescu expressed his shock at the question which stated that banks practice legal loan sharking and said: "There is no such thing as legal loan sharking. The new generation carries over this discourse from the deeply populist lectures. The questions are populist and they stem from a lack of financial education, because in our schools there is no such education taking place".

Last month, the financial education program in all of the 28 EU member countries was launched.

"Banks are conducting polls to find out how they should approach this. There will be many talks, with pupils, students, people from various environments, to see what must be done", Adrian Vasilescu said.

He also mentioned that things need to be straightened out on a nationwide scale: "Banks are arrogant, people in banks are arrogant, but what are people in the insurance industry or from any counter in this country like? We are talking about the Romanian society. Wherever we see a counter in Romania, we see a bit of arrogance. The financial education is based on social education, ethics. The twisting of the public discourse is the worst thing in the country, and this twisted discourse has reached these children, who start off their life twisted".